In the second of five interviews with local party leaders ahead of the election on 5th May, Labour’s Barry Rawlings seeks to help residents cope with the cost of living crisis
By Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

The Labour group hitting the streets of Barnet (credit Barnet Labour)

Barnet’s Labour group is promising a “cultural change” at the town hall that will see the council work more closely with residents.The borough’s largest opposition group wants to ensure people have more of a say on issues that affect their local area and see councillors as “part of the community”.Opposition leader Barry Rawlings said this “new relationship” with residents would help to inform Labour’s policies on protecting the environment, standing up to developers and improving community safety.At the same time, he underlined the group’s commitment to helping residents facing a cost-of-living crisis caused by rising inflation.Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Rawlings said the group’s priorities were “helping people with the cost-of-living crisis” and “taking danger to the environment seriously” while “keeping a tight ship and getting the basics right”.He added: “I think the most fundamental thing is about trying to change the culture by having a new relationship with residents. It isn’t about consulting, it is about participation as well.”The Labour group claims the Tories have failed to meet the pledges they made in their 2018 manifesto, including commitments on council tax and bin collections.Although the Conservative administration agreed to freeze core council tax this year, Cllr Rawlings said that in previous years council tax had increased by the maximum possible amount permitted without holding a referendum.He added that a shake-up of waste rounds in 2018 had led to thousands of collections being missed, and the administration had stopped separate food waste collections.To help residents facing a cost-of-living crisis, the Labour group has pledged to freeze council tax and refund the 1% increase in the adult social care precept to residents. In future years, Labour would keep any council tax rises below the maximum possible amount allowed by the government, Cllr Rawlings said.“The cost-of-living crisis is very real,” the Labour leader explained. “It affects people and has such a knock-on effect. If more of people’s disposable income is being spent on coping with inflation and on energy, less will get spent in local shops and local businesses. There is a ripple effect on the whole economy.”Cllr Rawlings pledged to retain weekly waste collections and bring back community skips to allow people to get rid of bulkier items. “We hope that will cut down on fly-tipping, which I think is an awful scar on the landscape,” he explained.The new way of working with residents would involve creating a citizens’ assembly to come up with ideas to increase “sustainability” and hold the council to account on the environment.Although the Barnet Labour group has pledged to declare a climate emergency, Cllr Rawlings said it would not “impose” measures such as low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which have been introduced by neighbouring Labour-run councils.“If there is an area that might want an LTN – where the majority of residents want it – we would work with them, but we will not be imposing things from the centre,” he said.Further examples of this “new way of working” would include carrying out safety audits of wards alongside residents and creating a “design council” with local experts to integrate new housing into the surrounding area.The Labour group leader claimed Barnet Council was seen as a “soft touch” by developers and needed to push for more affordable and social housing, as well as greater sustainability, with construction contributing to carbon emissions and air pollution.Labour has long been critical of the decision made under a previous Conservative administration to outsource services to Capita. Although several services are set to be brought back under the town hall’s control, Cllr Rawlings said Labour would go further and bring planning, land charges and building control back in-house.While he admitted insourcing other services such as IT would be more complex, he added: “The intention would be that over four years, the majority of services that are outsourced would be back in-house.”Cllr Rawlings claimed insourcing the services would be affordable, pointing out that planning had made a surplus and suggesting there were opportunities to share services with other councils to save money.During the past four years, the Labour group has opposed a number of large developments across Barnet. Cllr Rawlings said he was not opposed to development and pointed out that Labour wants to provide 1,000 new council homes. He added that where contracts had been signed, he did not believe “we can go backwards” but said Labour would negotiate with developers to try to improve schemes.Cllr Rawlings said the borough’s new Local Plan could be altered to include policies on height and density, and Labour would expect developments to be more sensitive to the local environment.In 2020, a damning report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found there were “significant failings” in the way the Labour Party had handled antisemitism, highlighting breaches of equalities law including harassment and discrimination.Cllr Rawlings said that there had been “huge steps forward” on tackling antisemitism under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, and that Sir Keir “had taken removing antisemites from the party seriously”. He added that he was proud that in Barnet the Labour group had “remained allied to the Jewish community”.“We have gone a long way along the road of purging antisemitism from the party,” Cllr Rawlings said. “I think there is still some work to do, but there is a determination to do it.”Setting out Labour’s approach to running the council during the next four years, he said: “If we can shift the way Barnet Council operates and have a different way of working with people, then it will help set Barnet up for a really good future.”

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